John Andrew Stillions IS The Censor at Last Planet Theatre.

Is the definition of pornography clinical? Is it possible to break sexual acts into component parts, assign each a grade, then pass or fail based on an aggregate score? Is a sex act, condemned by such analysis, redeemed by a story? If so, then what—and, crucially, where—is that story? Isn’t the idea of pornography just a social construct anyway? These questions are raised, battled over, and used as seductions by British playwright Anthony Neilson in n The Censor, now appearing at the Last Planet Theatre. The play is at once fascinating and repelling; it also lingers in the mind long after the applause ends.

Another question, raised not by the play but by the staging of it: Why are we so uncomfortable watching a sexually-themed show? Why do we fidget, avoid eye contact, profess worry about the grandmothers, the prudish in the audience? What do we reveal of ourselves in these reactions?

Told in a series of escalating explicit scenes between The Censor (John Andrew Stillions) and Fontaine (Emma Victoria Glauthier), the alluring creator of a film he is censoring, the spare play travels from that anatomical and plotless concept of pornography to the powerful story inherent in human sexuality.

Stillions’ performance is so spot-on we can’t imagine him being anything else. A desiccated man shunned by his fellows and sentenced to review only the most prurient of films, it is The Censor—no name for him—who categorizes sex acts by the aggregate of organs and insertions. Not for a minute do we doubt his unquestioned identification with his task. .

Stillion’s performance makes his character, but it is Glauthier’s performance as the seductive Fontaine that makes—or breaks—the play, for it is she that forces The Censor to change. Unfortunately, there is scarcely a moment Glauthier appears at ease in her role. In one scene she paces back and forth, the image unmistakably that of a cat restless in a zoo’s cage. Her movement is supposed to intimidate and seduce, but Glauthier nervously rushes about, forgetting that the cat takes time to express herself with each rippled muscle, each hypnotic step, and all seduction is lost. When she does stand still, she is constantly jutting out her jaw. We know the image, a woman asserting and enjoying control, but Glauthier does it so often she looks like she suffers from a dental problem.

The irony is that Glauthier is sensual, is seductive, but only in her unguarded moments. One night she will come to the stage worked over by a bad day, forget her self-consciousness about playing such an extreme character, and just be Fontaine. When that happens, watch out. She will leave the audience spent in their seats.
There are flaws in the play itself, easily missed in the extremity of what is on stage. The Censor’s wife, played by Erin Gilley, in a series of pointless vignettes punctuating the main scenes, exists primarily as a place-holder for The Censor’s breakthrough near the end. There is little Gilley can do with her role, and little the role does for the play. Another problem is Fontaine’s apparent knowledge of The Censor’s personal life, hinting at a back story, but we are given none of it. And the writers’ dependence on a clichéd view of America to form the play’s climax is cheap and unnecessary, especially given the richness of his material.

Much can be learned about a show by listening to the comments of the exiting audience, and here we are back to nervous worrying about the sensitivities of those hypothetical grandmothers. This might be a surprise to some in “sexually liberated” San Francisco, but it shouldn’t. There is just as much discomfort here about the airing of personal behavior as elsewhere. One hopes there is less hypocrisy around this discomfort, and surely there is less demonizing here of those with rarer tastes—right? 

How you receive The Censor depends on where you are on the sexual line. There’s some serious smut here. Prigs, sexphobes, those who believe it is important to mask private truths with public lies—don’t go! You’ll be infuriated. But if you are relaxed about things sexual—or think you are—give ve The Censor a try. You may find out how liberated you really are.

The Censor continues until Aug. 12 at the Last Planet Theatre, 351 Turk St., SF. Tickets ($15-$18) call (415) 440-3505 or go to www.lastplanettheatre.com